(both from people using Glass and not paying attention to where they're going, and from people who use Glass to surreptitiously collect more funny gaffes from others a/whee/ bit faster than people can currently whip out their cellphones)

I'm not frightened, though. The whole point of being a technologist is knowing how to master it.

If that means turning off my Glass before looking at things that look vaguely like dildos so I don't get spammed with sex aids in my contextually-aware adstream, then so be it. And if I have to start wearing a Guy Fawkes mask out in public so my friends' Glass doesn't facial-recognize me when I'm out spanking it in the park... I'm sure I can come to cope with that too.

I really had very little interest in Glass at the current price point until I started reading about how much people are pissing themselves over it. Now I'm actually considering plunking down for one just to watch people's reactions (hell, maybe even a non-functional display model)

On the plus side, the erosion of an illusion of privacy in public will accelerate Solarisation. Our homes will eventually become our bastions, which we will rarely leave. There will be no need to, and too many privacy implications if we do.

In short, it's a symbol for a future utopia (or dystopia, depending on who you ask) where isolationism is taken to the extreme, and privacy laws are absolute. What you present to the outside world is what you want to present, and what you want to hide, you have the full right to hide. As long as you stay within the borders of your home and property.

And when you're too poor to afford the privacy of your own home, I'm sure Big Brother Googlecorp will help you afford a Google Telescreen to watch every room of your apartment (good luck finding an apartment without one; your slumlord will *know* you must be up to nefarious business if you're unwilling to submit to automated good behavior monitoring).

Sure, words change their meanings and new ones are coined every day, but you can't just pull one out of your bottom and expect people to know what you mean. (Unless you take great pleasure in explaining how clever you were to use a word that nobody knew what it meant.)

Well, recording and streaming video on the internet is also possible with current smartphones. I don't see how these glasses are worst on this aspect than the existing smartphones. It is just more convenient to wear.

When you hold your cell phone up, rather than looking down at it, I have a clue you may be taking photos or videos. I can turn away or walk away if I don't want to be on your facebook page. But most of the time you aren't doing that. Right?

If you have a camera always facing where you are looking, and everyone knows you have a camera facing where you are looking, then you are always potentially recording people, and you may find it common for people to look away or walk away from you.

When this was announced I was thinking about that. I even went so far as to send an email into the aether (I never got a response) stating that the voice control was probably the worst possible implementation that I thought they could use.

I suggested that they develop an Android app that functioned as a remote control. I also suggested that they include a small remote control (wireless, of course) with a "nipple" for navigation and a couple of buttons for selection and menu access. I believe my email also suggested that they make apps available for other phones and tablets so that people would have a choice in the matter. Needless to say, they did not listen to me. I am not surprised, nobody ever does. That does well serve my enjoyment of saying, "I told you so."

I also suggested that they include an LED that was forward facing and would turn on when the device was in a recording mode as it would alert those people around the user that they were being recorded. I believe I also added that failure to do so would possibly result in litigation over privacy concerns if they failed to do so as some countries seem to be moving towards enhanced privacy laws as of late. It appears that they've decided to include this as a feature though I'm sure that someone has/will disable it but, at least, the intent was there. I haven't played with the device and can't say for certain that it was included but I recall an article concerning them and it mentioned that they had opted to include the recoding indicator light. The initial reporting suggested that the recording indicator light wouldn't be included in the device which was, to say the least, a bit disturbing.

Needless to say, even as a stock holder (a trivial amount, but still) I was either ignored or my email never reached the proper people. I was disappointed by not, at least, getting a "fuck you" response and have opted to not purchase the device. I both appreciate Google and gadgets and think that it is unfortunate that Google has turned into the company that they have become. I can only hope that they return to the motto of not doing evil but I think that's an unlikely change. I'm disappointed, very much so, with them. I am disappointed enough to have made up my mind that my replacement phone will be a Microsoft phone but I'm not disappointed enough to give up the other Google services such as Gmail, iGoogle, and Google+.

I'd like to hope that more companies will become interested in the tech and that they'll make similar devices. Hopefully one of them will suit my needs as I'd really enjoy everything from the increased availability of information about my present location to the various functions that can be included with augmented reality. I don't even, particularly, care a great deal about the ability to record anything. I think an interesting inclusion would be audio similar to the manner used by various museums that provide information as you move through them. There are some true quality of life improvements that can be made with these types of devices so I'm disappointed with the first generation but I'm optimistic about the future generations and I hope that more vendors become involved.

I believe that the remote should have come with the device as a standard controller. Using voice control methods is a strange choice in my opinion and will likely mean that there are issues with it in noisy environments. A coupling with another form of control would be a later added feature too though I would suggest implementing it for the first release. Other than that, well, I'm unsure of what suggestions I made that should come later? The recording indicator light was included in the initial release. As the control function is a basic requirement and I think that voice is inherently unsuitable for the task then it stands to reason that I'd have appreciated it with the device's first iteration and not something added at a later date.

I guess I'm saying that controlling the device isn't really much of a feature per se but is a requirement. Using voice to control the device isn't where I'd have started. I'd have gone with a wireless remote AND have gone with applications for Android, iOS, and Windows (more a feature) during the development phase.

I didn't have much hope for them listening to my suggestions nor did I imagine my miniscule stock holdings (I didn't mention them) would impact their decision regarding that. I did, though, expect some sort of response to indicate that they'd pretended to consider it. I was actually surprised that I didn't get a standard letter noting the receipt of my email and, likely, sent automatically. I didn't even get that... It gave me the impression that my email wasn't received by the correct department (which I felt was the most likely), that they simply didn't care to hear my suggestions, or that they were under a lot of pressure and had little time as they rushed the product to market. Unfortunately I think it may be a combination of both the former and the latter...

Oh well... I have invested in the company and have an interest in the company but I haven't invested in the company at a level that grants me any say in what the company does. Now, I'm curious.

I have 25 shares and got those when they sold for somewhere less than $200 each. I don't recall the exact purchase price but I recall my limiting my investment total to $5000 at the time. I am not sure what the price is at today... Hmm... $909.18 is the current price according to, of course, Google. I guess I should have invested more.

Hardly a hipster. I'm pretty geeky myself, and even I think GG is dorky. And it's *your* shallowness that keeps you from seeing it.

GG is dorky because when you are wearing it you are willing to let a piece of non-critical technology come between you and your interaction with real-life people. It tells people that that gadget is more important to you than unobstructed vision and uninterrupted attention.

When you wear a bluetooth headset as you go about your day, you are telling people that your phone is more important than the use of that ear, or your uninterrupted attention.

That is, they tell people gadgets are more important to you than people.

That is dorky.

Someday there will be a less obstructive, less intrusive, less unfashionable way of doing the things those gadgets do, and there will be ways to discretely use them when needed and render them both inoperable and invisible when not needed. In the meantime it's probably useful that people who are more interested in gadgets than in people provide a market to develop these devices, but right now they are not invisible or nonintrusive enough for normal, social people to not be put off by their presence.

That is the best summary I have yet seen as to the problems someone who is inherently a technologist can see with the product.

The other aspect of this I find troubling in a consumer product, is that SO MUCH money is spent getting rid of glasses - Lasick, contacts, etc. - that I can't see how they can find much of a market that wants bulky things you have to wear on your head all the time.

Even he watches like Pebble, I can see some appeal to them for normal people even though I don't want one myself (got rid of watches years ago). But Google Glasses, I cannot see the appeal outside of a very tiny minority.

I was skiing with my brother; between our spouses on the mountain, and tracking kids in ski school, we were trying to text, call etc. So, given all the gear you have on and the very cold weather, grabbing your phone out of your jacket is a problem. Having something like this, in the $150 - $250 dollar range seems like a reasonable solution to me.

No, I would not just wear them around, just like I would not wear ski goggles instead of sunglasses.

You've essentially just described the average person's interaction with smart phones. I see people constantly distracted by smart phones at every spare moment. On the elevator, on the bus, waiting for the train, etc. Technology gets between real life interaction with people constantly. GG isn't really terribly revolutionary in that respect

Yes, your attention to your phone makes it look like you aren't in the here and now. It's probably why people considered it rude even before phones were so multi-function.

But the glasses are even worse, because you *can't* indicate your complete attention without taking them off. You *can* look up from a smart phone, and people can see they have your attention. With the glasses, even if you intend to give your undivided attention, and even if the thing isn't displaying something at the moment, you still don't look like you're giving your complete attention. It's like holding your phone up in picture taking position. Even if you're not looking at it people will assume you're going to, or that you're taking pictures instead of paying attention to the conversation.

Try it. Hold your phone up at about cheek level, off to the side of your face, far enough in front of you that you could read it if you looked at it. I guarantee it will be extremely distracting to conversation and people will assume you are distracted and possibly recording them, even if you don't look at your phone. They will probably stop mid-sentence and ask you what you're doing.

With the glasses there's a constant reminder that there's a device between you and me, and I know it's capable of displaying stuff as I'm trying to talk to you, and I know there's a camera pointing at me. As if you were holding a cell phone up. Worse, the eye it partially obscures is the one most people focus on, so they can't even really look you in the eye.

GG is dorky because it LOOKS dorky.

Definitely. But even if they made it more fashionable I think it'd still be dorky.

Last night a company I'm helping build had a booth at Uncubed NYC. A guy came over with the glasses at the end of the night. He had a drink in his hand and had obviously been taking advantage of the free booze. He was an MBA-type douche with obnoxious semi-slurred questions about our app (ex. "So, why can't Google just build this?).

As soon as he came over you could tell that everyone stiffened up and our attitudes changed. It changes how you respond to people's questions, how you act.

If someone really wants to, yes, but how likely is that? The problem with the glasses is now it's going to be a trendy thing to randomly film people without them realizing, and all kinds of people are going to find all sorts of embarassing things posted on the internet for the world to see and laugh at.

Chance that someone has gone out and bought a expensive clandestine camera just to follow me around and see if I scratch my balls or try to hit on someone who's out of my league at the local bar: 0.

Chance that some annoying hipster with more money than sense will randomly film me scratching my balls or trying to hit on someone who's out of my league at the local bar. >0 and climbing.

Yes, chances are climbing that you'll get recorded, but so what? It's already illegal to publish such photos. And places where you can have an expectation of privacy can already prohibit photography on their property. Oh, and as for expensive, spy cameras go for around $20.

Well yes, because the conversation is no longer between you, but possibly being recorded or streamed live on-line. If I'm going to be judged in public by people half way around the world, I want to know who exactly is judging me (which would be in the millions).

Fame? Not for me. I don't care for it, I don't want it. An any fame I get would be in a negative light anyways.

I can't say I fully understand this type of reaction. Being your typical geek/gamer combo, the idea of having my own personal HUD in RL I find to be at the very least intriguing, and potentially awesome. At the same time, I don't particularly care if someone is recording me in public.

The bottom line is, even when people wearing these are recording, you're not the recording. You're scenery at most, obvious exceptions excluded.

Gonna be fun in all those countries where hiding your face in public is not allowed by law (laws typically designed against Muslim-style burka gowns, but of course written broader and in a non-discriminatory sense).

I wonder if it could be called "hiding" in a legal term if people are capable of recognizing you, but software isn't.

Something that I could pick out with my eyes as a commonality with all 4 models which were "hidden" from recognition: hair coming down the middle of their face. From the looks of the 4th model (the one with the crimson hair in the middle) that's really all that's needed to defeat this program. It doesn't seem like hiding is really that difficult.

I recall that there was an article mentioning that facial recognition software could be foiled by wearing paint on your face. The functioning examples of this looked like the "dazzle camouflage" used on some of the ships during WWII. So, yeah, it looks like that can be defeated but, of course, you're running around looking like the USS Fuzzbudget or something.

Apple has been running a handsomely produced series of adds showing the iPhone being used as a traditional hand-held camera, a later-day Kodak. Each set piece a thousand light years removed from the creepy open mouthed geek in the shower who went viral as the defining image of Google Glass.

-- The Segway. The Bluetooth headset. The pocket protector.

What do these three technologies have in common? They all pretty much work as promised. They all seem like good ideas on paper. And they're all too dorky to live.

Now, far be it from me to claim that nerdiness equals lack of popularity potential. But I contend that dorkiness and nerdiness are two different qualities. While nerdiness implies a certain social awkwardness that's ultimately endearing, dorkiness connotes social obliviousness that opens you to deserved ridicule.

I hate how they look. I hate knowing that they're potentially recording 24/7. I hate knowing that glazed look in your eye while I am speaking with you now may have nothing to do with what I am saying. (at least with a phone I know you're preoccupied)

"Artsy" douches like this guy [cnn.com]? Some people simply don't want permanent records of their daily activities. The number of people against it goes up sharply when that invasion of privacy is used commercially or for profit.

If I'm not so special, then why do my mundane activities need to be recorded? What benifit does it serve? Certainly not mine; the activities being recording are so unexceptional the only people to gain by having a recording of them are my loved ones who want a momento of the event or people looking for dirt on me. If I don't know you, but you are sending video of me into some cloud service, then no good can possibly come to me as a result. The most likely outcome is that nothing will come of it. But that is also the best case. The less likely cases are that I could loose my job, or be convicted of some bullshit crime.

I can appreciate the argument that you shouldn't do things in public that you don't want people to know. However the areas that are considered a "public space" has been expanding conciderably to the point where your personal home is the only real private space. But people aren't solitary creatures. They need to be able to congregate with others like them without having their activities scrutinized by the entire world, just by the community that they are interacting with. We need freedom to not spend our lives living like a PR representative on the stage every hour that we are outside of our homes.

"If I'm not so special, then why do my mundane activities need to be recorded? "

They aren't. I can't imagine any Glass wearer would waste battery life and storage recording you - or any other person. Expect Glass wearers to use it just like we all use phone cams and videos already. Except unlike phones, with Glass you have a decent chance of knowing when somebody takes your picture.

And this is what I find baffling: people are fine with hidden stills and filmclips taken by phones all over the place, but freak out about a headset that is much more difficult to use in secret. If you value privacy, wouldn't you prefer obvious, hard-to-conceal Glass over secretive phones?

You know, if I meeting someone, and I want to have a real discussion with them, I want to be off the record. I want to be able to dwell into issues, topic, hypotheticals, without the possibility of this stuff coming up in a negative or non authentic manner later on. You know those people who always say, well, two weeks ago, you said such and such. I don't hold real conversations with those people. Those people are always on the record, usually boring, and no is really their friend. They have acquaintances who want something, maybe lovers, but no friends.

It is like saying we have no expectation of privacy, Yet when someone puts up a sex video, or videos themselves having sex without their partners permission, all hell breaks loose. Or when a school, that has clearly stated the computer will be recording from time time, records a student in her room changing, all hell breaks loose. It really makes no sense.

It isn't as if it is currently impossible for a disgusting creep to record video of your girlfriend, not only do a large number have phones that have a camera, but wearable cameras have been around for quite while. And they are much less expensive than Glass will be.

A friend of mine wrote a book about the state of virtual reality over twenty-five years ago. Back then, special glasses, headsets or other similar viewers were state of the art. Now, your average first person shooter video game has better 3D than anything he wrote about.

Not sure about the singularity part, but to me it's definitely all of the above (well, maybe except for "short-sighted", unless that was meant literally after all of the Google Glass users come down with mysterious ocular syndromes).

Google Glass-like devices were predicted in Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel Snow Crash [wikipedia.org].In the book, the wearers are called "gargoyles".

Here are a couple quotes from the book that I found online.

Gargoyles are no fun to talk to. They never finish a sentence. They are adrift in a laser-drawn world, scanning retinas in all directions, doing background checks on everyone within a thousand yards, seeing everything in visual light, infrared, millimeter-wave radar, and ultrasound all at once. You think theyâ(TM)re talking to you, but theyâ(TM)re actually poring over the credit record of some stranger on the other side of the room, or identifying the make and model of airplanes flying overhead. For all he knows, Lagos is standing there measuring the length of Hiroâ(TM)s cock through his trousers while they pretend to make conversation.

Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society.

Somewhat ironically, I remember listening to a podcast about some professor who developed a one-handed keyboard and then developed the skill to type as fast as people can talk. Then, with one hand in his pocket, was able to record in text every conversation he had during his work day.

I think he started doing this back in the late 70's, and at the time of the podcast, had arranged a wearable eye piece that would enable him to search through the conversations. This means that while you're talking to him, he can 'remember' what you were talking to him about the last 5 or so times you spoke to him.

The whole process, he said, had become automatic. I'd like to know what he's up to these days if anyone has any information or if this sounds familiar.

In the future, software will be able to characterize what you've seen, recognize and label people, places and things you've seen, and organize your day's live recording into easily scan-able and searchable chapters.

*That* will enable true creepiness.

Right now it's unlikely you'll take the time to record your interaction with or your sight of me, and even less unlikely you'll edit it and post it somewhere as an interesting event, and even less unlikely someone else will find it interesting enough to view.

But make the recording, labeling, organizing and posting automatic, and the searching and scanning very easy, and I'm far more likely to be recorded and seen when I don't want to be.

The eye it partially obstructs is the eye most people focus on when they are talking to you. So when you are wearing them people can't really even look you in the eye without constantly dodging the device in the way, and switching unnaturally to the left eye.

You know, that was my first thought. But you know, it seems to me that the Borg is kind of a short sighted vision. Gene Roddenberry was never very good at going more than 40 years into the future with any of his technology detail predictions. After all, we are now, further along than he thought we would be in the 23rd century, minus holy grail technologies like warp drive, which he knew would take more than a century to figure out. If we ever do see the Borg happen, it'll be with technology so small, that something like glass would be rendered totally unnecessary. In fact, even without a borg singularity, glass is a rough prototype at this point. Five iterations in, you won't even know it's there.

If we ever do see the Borg happen, it'll be with technology so small, that something like glass would be rendered totally unnecessary. In fact, even without a borg singularity, glass is a rough prototype at this point. Five iterations in, you won't even know it's there.

Gene Roddenberry was never very good at going more than 40 years into the future with any of his technology detail predictions.

It doesn't really matter how far into the future the author of the script is looking. The only thing that matters is how the viewers are going to accept that.

Try to make a movie today about a programmer's day at the office, and then show it to the audience of 1900's. Will that work with them? But a good old western will work because the audience understands what's going on. You can look 1,000 years into the future, where humans become invisible energy beings. How do you film those?

Is it feasible that the Starfleet insignia doubles as a communicator, but is not able to transmit video - or even still images? That you cannot triangulate on that signal? That it cannot automatically report medical trouble? These functions are already common among special operations troops, even though we haven't mastered the art of subspace communication yet, as far as I know. But these, and many other omissions and deficiencies give the script writers the tools to construct situations where the protagonists have to actually invent a solution, instead of casually teleporting away from danger. The same story happened to K-9 and the sonic screwdriver of Doctor Who - they became a universal solution to all the problems. That's why the Doctor gave them away. (No sane person would do that, of course, considering how often these devices saved his $behind.)

Expectations come from what *people expect* --- not some Google-given principles handed down from on high. Plenty of people do expect that, while their actions in public aren't strictly concealed from view, they also aren't being constantly recorded by a band of paparazzi stalkers, to be analyzed and archived by some massive server farm. Google Glass shifts the frequency, pervasiveness, and centralization of surveillance. You're the douche for wanting to dictate to everyone what their expectations should be, instead of allowing people to set their own expectations (and ideals), and fight back against letting the world slide into a dystopian corporate surveillance state.

Just curious, but when did Google said they would be uploading the photos to their servers. Or rather, when did they say it was going to be that way because YES? Surely you'd be able to store it in local memory and at the end of the day check them/delete them/upload them to where you want, no? Just like any other camera?

Not to say there won't be those that will take and upload, but I'm asking about the possibility of using it, you know, as a non-connected camera?

That, and how different is it from somebody pulling their camera, taking the photo, and uploading it without asking you? That you saw them? That you know they did?

Just curious, but when did Google said they would be uploading the photos to their servers.

This is slashdot. People assume Google will store all the data they could possibly get access to, and they will present those assumptions as if they were facts. The burden of proof is on those, who claim Google won't do something evil with this data.

This description of course doesn't apply to all slashdot users, but you can find plenty of people fitting the above description in every thread related to Google.

Since slashdot users are people, they are of course not all the same. The same is true of the employees building Google's products.

My Android phone yesterday afternoon uploaded photos to Google Plus without my telling it to. I happened to notice there was a notification icon on my Google home page, after I'd signed into gmail. Clicked on it, and it showed me photos on my phone, some older, some taken a few days ago. I expect since my phone is signed into gmail as well, that's how the photos got there. There's probably some setting I agreed to allow photos to be uploaded automatically somewheres, but I don't remember seeing it. So Google now knows I have photos of plum trees flowering.

How extraordinarily douchey. You are most likely recorded by hundreds of video cameras every day.

I agree that spraying someone with something that could blind them is not really acceptable - in fact it's more assault than "douchey".

However you have to remember these people are mostly recording NOT in public. Yes in public video cameras are everywhere. But then you got to a party at someone's house or a booth in a restaurant, now you are not nearly so much "in public" - but there are glasses users there. What if you are on a date with someone wearing them, do you not have a reason to expect your entire date would not be recorded?

That's the real problem, is that Glasses wearers extend the practical notion of what is "public" to anywhere they go. I mean, how long before the auto-recorded segments are subject to subpoena because something happened at a party?

So I wouldn't spraypaint people wearing them, but I don't think it's a good idea to wear them most places you would go.

I think gp was referring to the dystopic aspect of the book - I'm not sure that totalitarianism combined with the ubiquitous use of technology been seen in any countries yet, although East Germany certainly came close, for a while.

Although many aspects of the book can be found in different places and different times around the globe, it is the sum of the parts that makes it so dystopic, and hopefully still futuristic.

Somehow I get the feeling that somebody failed their English Literature exam, and is just a little bit bitter about it?:o)

I think gp was referring to the dystopic aspect of the book - I'm not sure that totalitarianism combined with the ubiquitous use of technology been seen in any countries yet, although East Germany certainly came close, for a while.

Although many aspects of the book can be found in different places and different times around the globe, it is the sum of the parts that makes it so dystopic, and hopefully still futuristic.

Somehow I get the feeling that somebody failed their English Literature exam, and is just a little bit bitter about it?:o)

Hard to say. When I read 1984 as an adult, it feels more like a dissertation about the rules of language, than a plausible future that could actually happen. I mean, he goes into some incredible depth about the way language works, what it's used for, and why the people in power wish to control it. As far as the playbook... the playbook is as old as time. The reason why 1984 is so jarring is because this is the way governments behave.

Thought crime is an interesting angle though, granted, but it's not that much of a leap from the things that are happening now. We have it now in the Western World, but nobody seems to have a problem with it. We live in an age where saying the wrong thing on the internet at all can land the cops at your door, even if what you said online isn't illegal. I've seen this first hand. It's happened to me.

The argument I always hear is that communication on the internet is an act of speech. But it's clearly not. It's an act of thought. Speech is a very specific thing.

Everything that happens on the internet is a thought. If it were speech, people would treat it differently. And if you want to skew it that way, you could make a fairly convincing argument that thought crime is already here, and that the government is actively monitoring the thoughts of billions of people right now. Not only that, but they're seeking even more power to monitor your devices. And, as you know, those devices are heading inward. Literal thought crime might only be a few years away.

The argument I always hear is that communication on the internet is an act of speech. But it's clearly not. It's an act of thought. Speech is a very specific thing.

The modern internet includes video and audio.

I'd also postulate that perhaps they were using the term "speech" in a quasi-legal manner which seems to include expressing ideas via non-speech. I'm also not sure why you think that people would treat it differently if it were spoken as opposed to communicated in a different manner. Quibbling over the definition of speech certainly has its merits as it distracts people from your argument so, well, there is that. But you're correct in that typed communication isn't actually speech though I'm not so certain of the validity of the rest of your argument.

If the Borg is what pops into your head, then I'm guessing you haven't read Snow Crash. Anyone who's read that is going to think "troglodyte"--the annoying, creepy old farts who have wearables so they can make sure that the kids stay off their lawns, and can report any suspicious activity to the proper authorities, along with a full video record.

Basically, the high-tech equivalent of the Curtain Twitcher [urbandictionary.com].